Monthly Archives: August 2014

The in basket: J. B.
Holcomb of Bainbridge Island writes, “Something has to be done
about the heavy traffic on (Highway) 305 between the ferry
terminal on Bainbridge and Poulsbo.

“After a ferry arrives from Seattle,
especially between 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., it is now the norm DAILY,
and year around, that it is bumper-to-bumper traffic all the
way to Poulsbo, only slightly relieved at the Suquamish/casino
intersection.

“At intersections along the way and
without a traffic signal, it is not uncommon to wait between 10 and
25 minutes to obtain access onto 305. Last week, I spent 20
minutes between Day Road and the Suquamish traffic signal, a
distance of about three miles.

“We now have a large, indeed
huge, urban metropolitan area commuter/transportation problem,
when, not too many years ago around here, this was
non-existent. Where are the complaints about this? Why are
people complacent about this? Why should we tolerate
this?

“Maybe a ban on truck traffic during
these times? How about a ban on one person in an
auto during these times (if legal)?
Subsidized home-office workers? Flex-time work hours for
persons employed in Seattle having a West Sound home?

“Any suggestions?”

The out basket: I had always ducked
experiencing this, not wanting to spend an hour in bumper to bumper
traffic. But twice in August, my wife and I motored up to the
island from my South Kitsap home, with the intent of following a
ferry load of traffic north.

Once was an ordinary Wednesday and a
ferry that arrived a little after 4. The second was a Seahawks game
day Friday, and a ferry that came in about 7:15. Each time I waited
until very near the end of the off-load before joining the
flow.

The first thing I noticed is the
traffic signal just downhill from Winslow Way, that allows
pedestrians to cross during ferry off-loads. It was a fairly long
light and I would think it would provide long breaks in traffic on
305 to allow side-street traffic chances to get onto the highway.
That, of course, would assume corresponding breaks in southbound
305 traffic, which may often be wishful thinking.

While I don’t doubt that it can be as
bad as J.B, describes, neither day did I experience it. It took me
26 minutes to reach Poulsbo on the Wednesday, with bumper to bumper
traffic from Hidden Cove Road to Suquamish Way. It took only 16
minutes on the Friday, with little bumper to bumper slowdown.

On the way south to the ferry terminal
about 5 p.m. that Friday, we did see oncoming bumper to bumper
northbound traffic for sizable distances, There was some
bumper to bumper southbound traffic, as well, probably due to the
Seahawks game.

I’m sure it’s somewhere between
irritating and infuriating to have to travel that gauntlet every
afternoon, but I think J.B. will just have to get used to it.

Everything I’ve read or heard over the
years tells me all really plausible relief, whether widening
Highway 305 and the Agate Pass Bridge or moving the ferry terminal
to Blakely Harbor and bridging to the Illahee area, are opposed by
most islanders.

I asked Claudia Bingham-Baker of the
state highway’s Olympic region is that’s what the state hears and
she declined to characterize it one way or the other.

She did say, “We agree with your
reader that traffic is heavy on SR 305, especially between the
hours of 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays.

“WSDOT, in partnership with the cities
of Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo, Kitsap Transit, Port Madison
Enterprises (Suquamish Tribe), Kitsap County and the Kitsap
Regional Coordinating Council, recently completed a study on how to
improve traffic flow through the SR 305/Suquamish
Intersection.

“The study determined that the best
long-term (20-year) solution for congestion relief at that
intersection was to build a roundabout. However, we have no funding
to build a roundabout and are currently looking for funding to
build an interim solution – a right-lane turn from westbound SR 305
to northbound Suquamish Way.

“Beyond the intersection, we have no
plans or funding to provide added capacity to SR 305.”

Barry Loveless, public works director
for Bainbridge Island, says the city councils of Bainbridge
and Poulsbo support a list of proposed improvements to 305, but the
list he sent me has few specifics, beyond undescribed work at the
intersections, and all have a six- to 10-year time line, even work
at Suquamish Way.

I’m sure there are individual efforts
to encourage tele-commuting and flex-time, but I think there would
be longer and louder howls of anger about restricting trucks and
one-occupant vehicles than there are about the daily backups.

The in basket: Gary Reed says, “I have noticed many small white
circles with an orange dot in the middle on many roads, and even
into the Kitsap Mall parking lot.

“Some have tails that point straight, some have tails that point
to the right or left, and a few have a ‘FWY’ designator. Are
these part of a new geo-mapping effort by some entity?” he
asked.

The out basket: No, says Doug Bear of Kitsap County Public
Works. “They are directional markers commonly called ‘Dan Henrys.’
They are installed by groups that host bicycle events. They are
used so participants know the correct route for the event. They use
a ‘fade-away’ paint that eventually disappears,” he said.

The in basket: Tom Baker of the city
of Bremerton electronic shop e-mailed me on July 24 to say, “I
happened to be in Bellevue during the I-90 lane closures, and paid
a bit more attention to the WSDOT Traffic Map on my Android phone.
When stopped in traffic, I noted the traffic flow was very close to
what was shown as Red-Yellow-Green.

“I then I looked at the traffic map for
Kitsap County/ Bremerton at about 9 p.m. and currently shows red
along Kitsap Way eastbound by Oyster Bay and some red along Callow
Avenue.

“Questions:

“WSDOT uses sensors to determine the
average speed. What are the sensors and how do they work for the
I-5, 405, etc. highways?

“How is the traffic map updated for
Kitsap County/Bremerton?”

The out basket: Tom’s question caught me
entirely by surprise, as I didn’t think there was any such
real-time information available online for West Sound highways
north of Gig Harbor.

The state provides online maps showing
traffic flow in green (good), yellow (slow), red (even slower) and,
on some maps, black (probably stopped) in the Seattle and Tacoma
areas. We see them all the time on the TV news. But the
information for Highway 16 ends at Gig Harbor.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Tom
got the Bremerton area display on his Android from this newspaper’s
Web site, at kitsapsun.com/traffic.

He was pretty quick in finding it, too.
Jeremy Judd, the paper’s Web site director, said it went up only
July 22, two days before Tom accessed it. The corporate office
provides it in agreement with a private company called Total
Traffic, which covers the nation.

I’m not sure how accurate it is, not
having a smart phone that could test it while I’m on the road. It
seems to always find red-level congestion near the Bremerton ferry
terminal, and to show yellow at intersections with a traffic
signal. It reliably shows the weekday afternoon backup on Highway 3
approaching Highway 304. It often shows slowdowns on Sedgwick Road
and as I write this, it shows congestion on Locker Road at
Sedgwick. I drove there to look but found nothing out of the
ordinary.

I e-mailed Total Traffic asking how it
gets its information, but I wasn’t hopeful of getting a
reply, and I didn’t. That’s probably proprietary information
they protect,

A state official told me he thinks Total
Traffic has agreements with companies with large fleets, like
delivery companies, and track the speed of the trucks. It’s a
nationwide network and The Sun’s depiction starts with the Puget
Sound area, with ways to zoom in and out.

The real-time data the state provides
online for Snohomish, King and Pierce counties is derived from
sensors in the pavement every half-mile or so, plus on freeway
ramps, says Claudia Bingham-Baker of the Olympic region. The
display is calculated by a computer based on the time it takes
vehicles to travel between sensors.

The state does use pavement sensors,
much farther apart, to collect traffic data here, but it’s for
long-term planning and business inquiries about traffic volumes.
It’s not shown in real-time displays. The assembled data can be
seen on the state DOT Web site at www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata.htm.
Click on Travel Data. There are six such data collection stations
in Kitsap County.

The in basket: A sign appeared Wednesday on the shoulder of
Highway 166 where it begins in Gorst, saying the highway would be
closed Monday through Friday nights this week. It didn’t say
why.

James Miller, who lives on the highway, says, “I would like to
know what kind of restrictions will be placed on us, in relation to
our coming and going.”

I hadn’t heard of any work that would require closing Highway
166, so I asked what it’s all about.

The out basket: It’s kind of confusing because, while the
advisory sign is on the shoulder of Highway 166, probably for want
of a better place to put it, no work will be done on 166, says Andy
Larson of the state’s project office here.

But the inside lane of Highway 16 coming out of Gorst, which is
the only way onto eastbound 166, will have the existing pavement
ground off and replaced by new asphalt, and be closed for that
work.

It probably won’t require closures every night, said Andy, but
they’ve retained the flexibility to close that lane as needed
during those nights. The same work will be going on in the
other two lanes there during those nights. The sign on
the roadside says the closures extent to Friday night,
but the news release about the work says only through Thursday
night, so maybe that’s more flexibilily.

It’s all included in the well-publicized repaving work in lanes
of highways 16 and 3 and many of its ramps. The state considers
that access from 16 to 166 to be a “ramp,” though I doubt that very
many drivers do.

The in basket: I haven’t paid a lot of attention to all the
publicity given the legalization of marijuana in our state, having
long ago satisfied my curiosity about it. But I figured I should
familiarize myself about the legality of being under its influence
on the highway, for purposes of the Road Warrior column.

I wondered if mere possession of it in a vehicle was illegal,
whether there is anything comparable to an open container
regulation such as exists with alcohol and DUI laws, and whether
medical marijuana authorization changes anything.

The out basket: State Trooper Russ Winger, spokesman for the
State Patrol here, said there are two ways to be cited for driving
with involvement of marijuana, but simply having it the car with
you is not one of them.

“You must be determined to be impaired and/or have the legal
limit of .5 ng/ml of THC (delta 9), to be convicted of the gross
misdemeanor of DUI/Drugs,” Russ said.

An online site says THC (delta 9) is the primary psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana.

“You cannot consume marijuana, in any form, in public and that
includes in a vehicle, which would be considered in public view,”
he said. “The law does not stipulate access to it or something
similar to the open container statute. Marijuana products are
required to be kept out of public view during personal
possession.

“Both using marijuana in public and having marijuana in public
view are considered civil infractions with a fine imposed.

“These laws still apply with ‘medical’ marijuana
‘authorization,'” he said, adding, “Of course, possession and usage
of cannabis is still illegal under federal law.”

I also had been curious about the proliferation of apparent
medical marijuana dispensaries on Mile Hill Drive near where I live
in South Kitsap, denoted by green cross signs. At one time there
were three in about a block. I also saw one on Sheridan Road near
Perry Avenue in Bremerton, in front of Safeway on Highway 303 and
in Gorst.

I stopped in at New Image, one of the three near me, and talked
with its manager, Curtis Yates. He said the green cross is the
accepted sign of a medical marijuana dispensary.

One of his neighboring dispensaries has closed and New Image
will be moving to a different South Kitsap location soon, he said,
so Mile Hill Drive won’t appear to be such a hot bed of medical pot
availability.

Recreational marijuana shops are much less abundant. I think
there has been only one licensed in Kitsap County, also in South
Kitsap.

The in basket: As often as I have driven north on Warren Avenue
in Bremerton from Burwell Street since the city took one northbound
lane of Warren for a raised barrier, I hadn’t noticed a third break
in the barrier at both Fourth and Fifth streets.

Crosswalks pass though two of the gaps at each intersection. But
the third gap, running on an angle through the barrier, is a
puzzlement. It doesn’t look like it adds anything to handling storm
runoff.

The other day, I saw a motorcyclist drive through it during rush
hour, stopping in the middle to let traffic clear so he could
continue west on Fourth Street.

I asked it that is the intent and was it legal?

The out basket: No, says Gunnar Fridriksson of the city street
engineers. The motorcyclist committed an infraction for which he
could have been cited. But the gap IS for traffic – bicycle traffic
– which can legally pass through it, Gunnar said. “It is diagonal
to give additional storage space when they are stopped in the
median.”

The in basket: Brian Lozier read the recent Road Warrior column
about transit buses having the right to proceed straight in the
outside lane on Sixth Street at Park Avenue in Bremerton where
other traffic must turn right, and described a similar incident on
11th Street at Warren Avenue.

He’s seen transit buses go straight in the eastbound center lane
of 11th, he said, though there’s what he described as “a clear
left-only arrow” in that lane.

“Because the city of Bremerton, in its infinite wisdom,
chose to narrow 11th to one lane in each direction just after
that

intersection,”Brian said, “buses going straight through in the
center lane make it so traffic in the right lane can’t move
over and they all have to slam their brakes.

“Is this a legal move for buses or are these drivers
just ignoring the law?” he asked, adding “does the red light
camera there also catch illegal movement on greens?

“Further,” he wrote, “since I have seen this numerous times (and
not just with buses), it seems like this merge can be eliminated by
just making that lane on 11th a right-turn only up to Park. There
aren’t usually a lot of cars parked there, and that one block
stretch is adjacent to to a walled-off power substation.”

The out basket: There are no signs conferring anyone the right
to proceed straight in that lane, so if transit drivers are doing
it, they are committing an infraction.

Transit
Executive Director John Clauson says, “If the bus went
straight through the intersection without using the right lane, it
was improper. I have (included) our operations director on
this communication and I am confident she will take care of
this.

“If your reader sees additional
violations of this type, he/she should give us a call with the bus
number and the exact time of the incident. It will help
immensely to help us track the issue back to the operator and work
with the team to refresh operators on the rules of the road.”

The two red light cameras there monitor
only red light infractions and then only in the two directions of
travel alongside which they are deployed.

Gunnar Fridriksson, the city’s managing
street engineer, says they do plan to make the outside lane right
only at Park, at the same time they make some parking revisions on
11th and Sixth. As at Sixth and Park, buses will be permitted to
proceed straight in the outside lane even after the change.

Lastly, what’s permitted on eastbound
11th at Warren isn’t all that obvious. The two round ball signals
for the outside lane (a federally required redundancy) leave many
drivers wondering whether going straight in the center lane
is legal. But I wouldn’t expect transit drivers to be confused
about it.

The in basket: For many weeks now I have been eying some barges
moored along the southern Sinclair Inlet shoreline between Port
Orchard and Gorst with large steel structures on them, painted
white and yellow.

Recently, another barge showed up next to them with concrete
structures aboard and rebar sticking out.

Also, out in the middle of the inlet, there is a large boxy blue
barge, which resembles those installed next to construction sites
where waste water has to be treated, though those usually are dull
green in color.

I want looking for an explanation of the barges.

The out basket: My first call went to Paul Fritts of Thompson
Pile Driving, located a short distance from the barges. He always
seems to have his finger on the pulse of what’s going on in
Sinclair Inlet.

Sure enough, he is the lessor of the moorage where the large
blue box is, he said. It’s a fish processing barge he expected to
have gone off to Alaska by now, but it hasn’t.

He had to guess as to the purpose of the structures on the other
barges, but he guessed right in saying they are probably for
construction going on at the Bangor naval base.

Leslie Yuenger, Public Affairs Officer for Naval Facilities
Engineering Command Northwest told me when I asked, “The barges
located in Sinclair Inlet are being staged there until the second
explosives handling wharf at Bangor is ready to receive the
materials onboard.”

The in basket: My step-daughter, Ronda Armstrong, of the Lake
Symington area says there has been trenching work going on where
Holly Road ends at Seabeck Highway and the rumor in the area is
that a roundabout will be built there.

I found a difficult-to-decipher mention in the county’s six-year
road improvement plan (TIP) of $1.6 million in improvements to that
intersection in 2015, but no mention of a roundabout. And the
weekly road report made no mention of the trenching work when I
looked.

The out basket: The rumor is true, says Doug Bear of Kitsap
County Public Works.

“The work being done there currently is under-grounding of
utilities in preparation of the intersection improvements next
year,” he said. “The project was on the road report previously but
slipped off last week. I’ve reposted it.

“The project you referenced in the TIP is the intersection
improvement project at that location. Part of that project is
determining what improvements would be most effective there. The
engineers evaluated different options and a roundabout is
considered the best approach to improve that intersection. The
rumor is correct!”

The listing in the TIP won’t be modified to show the planned
roundabout until the next TIP is approved by the county
commissioners at the end of the year.

The in basket: Eric Blair wrote July 25
to say, “I was traveling eastbound on Sixth Street in Bremerton
this past Wednesday at 1815, and was behind a Kitsap Transit small
bus. We were both in the right lane, stopped at the light at Park
Avenue. Imagine my surprise when the bus continued straight through
the intersection, from what is clearly marked a right turn only
lane.

“I didn’t see any ‘except transit’
language on the sign. Are transit buses exempt from the new right
turn only lanes in downtown Bremerton?”

The out basket: A sign is missing, as
transit buses need access to the curb lane to pick up and discharge
passengers and it is the city’s intent to allow them to proceed
straight in the outside lane there.

And there is an “except transit” sign,
just not right at the intersection. An earlier sign a half-block
back saying right turns only are allowed in the outside lane has an
“except transit” sign right below it. But I didn’t see it either
until Gunnar Fridriksson, senior Bremerton street engineer, told me
it was there and I went looking for it.

“The first sign which is about mid-block
between Warren and Park has ‘Except Transit’ so the buses can
legally continue through the intersection,” Gunnar said. “We
are updating the sign at the signal as well and I thought that had
been completed. Our sign shop is a bit busy these days, but I
will check in with them and give a little reminder we need to get
this done.”